Two Henry Sibley High School seniors named National Merit Finalist

and School District 197 congratulate Henry Sibley seniors , who have been named Finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Including O’Leary and Rosno, about 90 percent of the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists have attained Finalist standing.

Approximately half of these Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

These academically talented high school seniors are competing for some 8,300 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $34 million, that will be offered in the spring.

“Jack and Mark are two very talented students who have created a well-rounded education for themselves by participating in numerous academic, artistic and athletic extracurricular activities in their time here at Henry Sibley,” said Dr. Robin Percival, principal of Henry Sibley High School. “They are incredibly worthy of being named Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship program, and we wish them success as the competition continues.”

To become a Finalist, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools entered the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. 

The nationwide pool of Finalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.